WASHINGTON, DC – The Special Committee on Migration Issues of the Organization of American States (OAS) today conducted a workshop titled, “The Return of Migrants: Challenges and Opportunities.” The meeting, which took place at OAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., was presided by the Permanent Representative of Haiti to the Organization, Ambassador Duly Brutus, and featured experts on migration from various American countries.
During the event the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, said that the phenomenon of migration is one of the organization’s priorities because it affects, almost without exception, all of the hemisphere’s countries. He recalled that people in the Americas migrate much more within the region than outside and added that “the problems caused by migration can only be solved through dialogue, never through confrontation.” He also said that “this dialogue is essential in developing an effectively fruitful cooperation to solve any negative situations that current migratory trends may be generating.”
Jose Insulza
The meeting sought to share and promote regional initiatives and programs to help migrants that come back to their countries of origin to easily reintegrate the labor market and their communities, with special attention to programs that focus on involuntary deportation and those that include a gender perspective.
Among the speakers were Keisha Livermore, Head of the Representative Office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Jamaica; Hernán Holguín, Under Secretary of Citizenship and Solidarity of the National Secretariat for Migrants (SENAMI) within the Presidency of the Republic of Ecuador; Pedro Valenzuela, Chief of the Office of Return and Welcome of the Ministry of External Relations of Uruguay; Margarita de Lourdes Guerra Guerrero, Assistant Director General of Social Programs of the Unit on Migration of the Social Development Secretariat of the Government of Mexico; Sonia Lokki of La Cimade, France; and Richard Scott, Regional Representative of IOM for North America and the Caribbean.
At the workshop’s conclusion, Ambassador Brutus said: “The reason for our presence here at this Special Committee on Migration is to share our experiences on subjects as important as that of migration and make mutual decisions on best practices and to agree on how to make progress on common initiatives, all of this with a spirit of solidarity and unity, always with respect to human rights. Today’s debate is located in that context and I hope it will continue in this way in the future.”
